Describe something that you know how to do well. How do you know you do it well? How did you get interested in this topic? How did you develop your expertise? How do you hope to use this knowledge/skill in the future?
I consider that I am skilled at handling with stressful work through making plans. Where are the stresses come from? One is from my bad habit, procrastination and another from my tight schedule. It’s not until the last minute before the due that I will click “sent”. I am always eager to try something new so I keep adding new activities into my schedule. How to deal with these stresses? My solution is to make plans. Plans help me achieve something that I think I am incapable of. I decided to take the entrance examination for graduate students and I had only two months to prepare for it. It was a bold decision. The major in the university which I applied ranked No.4 in China and it was a new field for me. I should finish reading, comprehending, and memorizing at least ten books before the examination. As soon as I made my mind, I started to schedule my life. I separated the sixty days into three phases, thirty days, twenty days and ten days. Later I specified goals for each phase. At the first phase I just read these books quickly and wrote down my ideas in the margins of pages to get a general understanding of these unfamiliar topics. At the second stage, I tried to combine new knowledge to what I have learned to help me take it in. In the last ten days, I predicted what questions I might have in the examination. Then I detailed the plan until I know what I should do every day. After that I inserted some activities to relax myself and left some flexible time to deal with unexpected things, which made the plan practical. What was the most important is that I kept adapting my plan with the changing situation. Fortunately, I was admitted by my university after the examination, being ranked No.14 among three hundreds candidates. At that time I knew I had an ability which not everyone has to deal with stressful work through planning. From then on, I try to utilize my ability to help my friends make plans to achieve their goals step by step. I offer them suggestions about how to address their needs, set practical goals, and individualize their plans. Many plans involved my efforts turned out to be successful. Of course it was inseparable from their efforts and persistence. I think planning is a demanding job and it is a crucial ability of teachers. Teachers cannot write lesson plans, prepare materials for students and make assessment without that ability. What I want to do in the future is to help students tailor their best plan to learn on the basis of their goals, learning styles, learning strategies, schedules, and so on. As an old Chinese saying goes, to show a person how to fish is better than to give him fish.
Personal Expertise
Describe something that you know how to do well. How do you know you do it well? How did you get interested in this topic? How did you develop your expertise? How do you hope to use this knowledge/skill in the future?
I consider that I am skilled at handling with stressful work through making plans. Where are the stresses come from? One is from my bad habit, procrastination and another from my tight schedule. It’s not until the last minute before the due that I will click “sent”. I am always eager to try something new so I keep adding new activities into my schedule. How to deal with these stresses? My solution is to make plans.
Plans help me achieve something that I think I am incapable of. I decided to take the entrance examination for graduate students and I had only two months to prepare for it. It was a bold decision. The major in the university which I applied ranked No.4 in China and it was a new field for me. I should finish reading, comprehending, and memorizing at least ten books before the examination. As soon as I made my mind, I started to schedule my life. I separated the sixty days into three phases, thirty days, twenty days and ten days. Later I specified goals for each phase. At the first phase I just read these books quickly and wrote down my ideas in the margins of pages to get a general understanding of these unfamiliar topics. At the second stage, I tried to combine new knowledge to what I have learned to help me take it in. In the last ten days, I predicted what questions I might have in the examination. Then I detailed the plan until I know what I should do every day. After that I inserted some activities to relax myself and left some flexible time to deal with unexpected things, which made the plan practical. What was the most important is that I kept adapting my plan with the changing situation.
Fortunately, I was admitted by my university after the examination, being ranked No.14 among three hundreds candidates. At that time I knew I had an ability which not everyone has to deal with stressful work through planning. From then on, I try to utilize my ability to help my friends make plans to achieve their goals step by step. I offer them suggestions about how to address their needs, set practical goals, and individualize their plans. Many plans involved my efforts turned out to be successful. Of course it was inseparable from their efforts and persistence.
I think planning is a demanding job and it is a crucial ability of teachers. Teachers cannot write lesson plans, prepare materials for students and make assessment without that ability. What I want to do in the future is to help students tailor their best plan to learn on the basis of their goals, learning styles, learning strategies, schedules, and so on. As an old Chinese saying goes, to show a person how to fish is better than to give him fish.
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